In an age of Roku, gaming consoles streaming everything they can get their hands on, and Amazon Instant Video, TiVo has a hard uphill battle. So it introduced the TiVo Mini, a good idea on paper done in by some truly ridiculous design decisions.

TiVo

Where to start? The Mini is intended to be an extender box: You hook it up to your TV in another room and it streams content from the main box, while controlling your TiVo remotely if you want to get a season pass on a show or otherwise tweak your recording.

Sound great? It is, at least until you hit on the fact that you need to either pay a $6 monthly fee to use it, which is ridiculous, or buy a $150 lifetime pass, which is the only sensible option considering that’s two years’ worth of fees, right there.

Secondly, thanks to what one suspects is the bellyaching on the part of television execs concerned about “piracy,” it requires a wired Internet connection. One suspects this is due to the insane laws surrounding content streaming, since it’s just so bizarre.

In short, it’s a great idea hampered by bad design; wait until TiVo realizes they’re overcharging, and wrests the right to actually stream video over a wireless connection from the networks.

About Dan Seitz...
Dan Seitz is a semi-professional nerd (he'll have to code a homebrew game for the NES before he goes pro). He grew up fiddling with video game systems, computers, cameras, and other technology you should never hand to an eight-year-old if you want it back in pristine condition. Currently, he lives in Boston with his girlfriend, her cat, a Shih Tzu, and far too many objects with processors.